I was born and bred in
Saskatchewan and seeing Brad Wall make history in 2007 was one of the
best days I remember. The Roughriders went on to win the Grey Cup
that year too, which lifted everyone's spirits and made it look like
the province had finally turned a new leaf. It kind of did, but in
some ways it also stayed the same. We won't get into the negatives of
the last decade under Brad Wall's Saskparty, but we'll get into the
dangers that face the party as it heads into its leadership election
on January 27. If the party's grassroots members aren't careful, the
Saskparty might fall into the hands of those who'd either like to see
the party fail or would like to transform it into something
unrecognizable.

The problem with any
party leadership—especially when the party holds government—is
that hostile forces will try to infiltrate and infect the party's
core. It happened to Alberta's Progressive Conservatives and it could
happen to the Saskatchewan Party. What elevates the risk to the
Saskparty's grassroots core is the fact that it currently holds
government—meaning that voters aren't just electing a party leader,
they're electing the next premier. This compels everyone and their
dogs to get involved and to help transform the governing party, even
people who don't identify with the Saskparty's platform or its
right-leaning ideology.

In December, the
Saskparty boasted that its membership had tripled since the beginning
of the leadership race. Since Brad Wall made his announcement, the
party
grew from just under 10,000 members to just shy of 30,000
members. To the ordinary political wonk, this sounds good, but to the
wise Saskparty strategist with real conservative principles, this
should be sounding some alarm bells and raising some concerns.

Growing a party is
good, but with radical growth comes risks. A 300% increase in
memberships is an obvious sign that not all of the new memberships
belong to true blue conservatives or moderately right-leaning voters.
Even if only a quarter of the new memberships happen to belong to
left-leaning voters, it could be enough to drastically alter the
outcome of the leadership race.

The Saskatchewan Party
is the result of a union between conservatives, progressive
conservatives and centrist liberals. The party has never been a
left-wing party and its very purpose was to counter the province's
socialist, NDP hegemony. The Saskparty was designed to be the answer
to decades of backward socialism in Saskatchewan, but if grassroots
members aren't careful, that could all change in a heartbeat.

Gord Wyant

Wyant has quickly
become a favourite among NDP supporters and Liberals. The
Twitter-verse has been rumbling with praise for Wyant as the “most
reasonable” and “most moderate” among the leadership
candidates. However, the profiles that are tweeting these
blush-worthy heaps of praise reveal what's really happening.

Tweets:

As with any leadership race, whether its a conservative race or a socialist race, opposing forces will come in with differing strategies. In Alberta, those opposing forces helped elevate Allison Redford to the PC leadership, which inevitably pushed the party to the left and created a fatal fracture that resulted in a strong Wildrose and an eventual electoral collapse.

Redford's win had all the hallmarks of leftist coersion. Opponents of the Progressive Conservative agenda masqueraded as allies and helped pump up a candidate that would drive a wedge into the cracks and eventually cause the party to implode. The mission was a short-term success that eventually led to an NDP government, but the long-term ramifications will probably prove to be disasterous for Alberta's left. No other force has done more to unify Alberta's conservative factions than Rachel Notley's NDP government.

Gord Wyant's popularity as an underdog bears all the markings of a similar coup d'etat. Among most grassroots members, Wyant doesn't even register as a viable candidate. It's the leftist saboteurs and interlopers who are trying to elevate him. To the party's true base, Wyant is too moderate, too flaky and too eager to capitulate and yield to the whims of activists and unions. Without an influx of leftist voters, Gord Wyant wouldn't have a chance at winning the Saskparty leadership.

This doesn't mean Wyant is a willing participant in the attempted destruction of the Saskparty, it just means he's an unwitting pawn of the Saskparty's enemies. However, if you haven't been paying attention, Gord Wyant is a full-fledged Liberal. He allegedly tore up his Liberal Party membership because of Justin Trudeau's carbon tax, which makes his entire schtick for leadership look suspect.

Everyone And Their
Kids

There doesn't need to
be a grand conspiracy to destroy the Saskparty and alienate its more
conservative grassroots. It's common practice for opponents to buy
memberships in opposing parties for various reasons, especially when
it comes to leadership races—but the destruction of the Saskparty
has the potential to happen naturally without any coordinated effort.

The floodgates have
opened and the Saskparty is attracting people who don't share the
party's values. That's just
a fact. This is what happens when a party picks a new leader
while it still holds government. It's only natural for everyone to
want a say in choosing the next premier. Since the Saskparty allows
members as young as 14 to vote, we should also expect interlopers to
register their kids to double and triple their own impact.

When floodgates open,
water carries debris and dirt. Even without a coordinated effort by
the left, it would be stupid to assume the water is crystal clean.

In a matter of months,
the Saskparty tripled its membership. Undoubtedly, a lot of people
with bad intentions have purchased memberships, but a lot have done
so because they genuinely want to have a say in who leads the
province. The only problem is that these people will inadvertently
advance the goals of the people with bad intentions.

The average,
unaffiliated part-time voter in Canada usually leans
left on most social issues. Countless surveys and polls have
proven this time and time again. Even some accidental conservatives
tend to be more receptive to soft, progressive messaging—despite
having more socially or economically right-wing beliefs. This plays
well for centrist and leftist candidates like Tina Beaudry-Mellor and
Gord Wyant.

Automatically, a flood
of unaffiliated voters will water down the party's core values and
principles, whether anyone likes it or not. Combined with the
coordinated efforts to shift the party in a direction that would
fracture the base and alienate conservatives, this is a recipe for
disaster.

If you don't believe
there are coordinated efforts to overrun the Saskparty, maybe some
facts will help. The Saskatchewan Teacher's Federation—a union—is
currently running a campaign called “Pick
A Premier”. If you're familiar with the NDP, you're familiar
with the party's deep roots in Saskatchewan's labour movement. Almost
every single public sector and labour union in Saskatchewan has
backed the NDP since its inception, which is why the party has had so
many successive majority governments in the province. It's only when
a big enough chunk of the private sector gets irrate that the NDP
loses its footing. That happened in 2007, but apathy and resentment
are starting to kick in and unions are mobilizing.

Apathy And
Alienation

This growing apathy
makes the Saskparty's future look even more dangerous. With ordinary
voters losing interest in the Saskparty, now is not the time to
alienate the party's conservative grassroots with a candidate like
Gord Wyant. Driving the Saskparty closer to the NDP on policy issues
might look like a good idea to keep the NDP at bay, but it won't
work. Historically, moving a right-leaning political party to the
left has never been successful. Unlike progressives, conservatives
tend to be less cohesive. When conservatives get mad, they pack up
their shit and leave.

The Reform Party and
Wildrose have shown us what happens when someone tries to drag
conservatives to the dark side by their ankles. Saskatchewan's labour
movement knows how all of this works. For them, installing a
progressive liberal as the Saskparty leader is a win-win scenario. If
the party doesn't slowly rot from the inside and implode like
Alberta's Progressive Conservative Party, unions will have a more
pliable premier until they can elect the next NDP government.

The Saskparty will most
likely lose the next provincial election. The next leader will be
tasked with managing failure rather than charting a path to victory
for 2020. The new leader will try, but 2020 won't be about whether
the Saskparty wins, it'll be about how badly it loses. Unless the new
leader finds a way to rebuild the enthusiasm of 2007, the party will
have to find ways to mitigate the losses they're going to incur in
2020. Under someone like Gord Wyant or Tina Beaudry-Mellor, the party
runs the risk of alienating conservatives—and without
conservatives, there is no Saskparty. Who the next leader is, how the
next leader manages the party and the province, and how voters
receive any changes in direction will determine how many seats go to
the NDP in 2020.

To prevent the worst
case scenario, the party's grassroots will need to be vigilant and
present. Don't skip the leadership vote, because the interlopers
won't. Buy your tickets to the next policy convention, because the
saboteurs will have theirs pre-ordered.